Atlona Announces Second-Generation Velocity AV Control Platform

Available in January, the AV industry’s first fully IP-enabled control solution continues to lead in scalability, reliability, and ROI, while adding features and new flexible deployment options.

Atlona has significantly updated its Velocity IP-enabled AV control platform, with exciting new features and flexible deployment options for commercial AV environments.

Available in January and making its debut at ISE 2020 (February 11-14, Amsterdam RAI, Stand 5-T50), Velocity will transition into an expanded and enhanced platform offering greater ability to plan and scale AV control system designs, from 1-3 systems to large, enterprise-wide installations. The new release will also integrate new capabilities at no extra cost, including room scheduling, unlimited BYOD usage for AV control, integration with leading soft codec platforms (Zoom Rooms, Cisco WebEx), AV asset management, and remote monitoring and management from the cloud.

The updated Velocity System platform includes new hardware and software server gateways to support various room and application requirements.

“Our new Velocity System model removes the burden of specifying, configuring, deploying and managing separate platforms for AV control, room scheduling, and asset management,” said David Shamir, Director of Product Management, Atlona. “With the integration of the Atlona Management System (AMS) into Velocity, installers can now configure, control, and manage not just the control systems, but individual Atlona AV devices as well. Velocity also retains the functionality and benefits that made it a great AV control system, including an IT-friendly architecture, built-in disaster recovery, and the ability to quickly configure, modify and extend control systems without extensive programming.”

VELOCITY SYSTEM HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE COMPONENTS

Velocity’s updated platform includes new VGW-HW hardware server gateways to serve multiple rooms with AV control, room scheduling, and configuration and management of Atlona AV devices. With a single VGW-HW gateway serving multiple rooms, the Velocity System substantially reduces cost of ownership compared to competitive AV control platforms requiring a separate processor per AV system or room.

Also available is the VGW-SW software server gateway, which provides the capabilities of the VGW-HW hardware devices, with the convenience of installation on standard IT server infrastructure.

The room capabilities of each Velocity hardware and software gateway are as follows:

• The VGW-HW-3 provides AV control for up to three rooms, and room scheduling for up to six rooms, with device capability for up to 250 simultaneous IP connections.
• The VGW-HW-10 provides AV control for up to 10 rooms, and room scheduling for up to 20 rooms, with device capability for up to 250 simultaneous IP connections.
• The VGW-HW-20 provides AV control for up to 20 rooms, and room scheduling for up to 40 rooms, with device capability for up to 500 simultaneous IP connections.
• The VGW-SW provides AV control for up to 20 rooms, and room scheduling for up to 40 rooms, with device capability for up to 500 simultaneous IP connections.
• A VGW-SW installation can be expanded with one or more VRL-SW licenses. Each license provides AV control for one additional room, and room scheduling for two additional rooms.

Each Velocity System server gateway includes the following essential features:

• Convenient setup and management from a web browser
• Simple configuration of AV control, room scheduling, and AV devices with the interactions, flow, and visual elements of a web or mobile app GUI
• Velocity room scheduling system compatible with Google Calendar and Microsoft Office 365
• Centralised organization and management of Atlona AV device installations
• Includes Velocity Cloud Lite for remote configuration and management of AV control and room scheduling systems (no subscription required)
• Supports industry-standard, secure data communications, including IEEE 802.1x for hardware gateways
• Add a second, redundant Velocity System gateway for mission-critical applications – maximise uptime and reliability with immediate failover protection

Velocity Systems will continue to leverage Velocity Touch Panels in 5.5” and 8” screen sizes, with the ability to manage room scheduling and systems control through intuitive, touchscreen-based GUIs. Additionally, Velocity Systems allow the use of BYOD (user-supplied mobile devices and desktop browsers) for AV system control, with no extra licensing costs.

Atlona also announces the AT-VSP-800 8” room scheduling and AV control touch panel that will ship in early February. With  integrated bezel LED lighting, the panel is ideal for lobbies, hallways, or meeting space entrances that require a quick and easy way of visualizing room availability at a distance in scheduling applications.

Alternatively, the panel can instead be used within huddle spaces, conference rooms, classrooms, lecture halls and other spaces that require powerful AV control. In these cases, the lights on the outer frame of the touch panel can be used to reinforce awareness of AV control functions, such as AV mute or divisible room state.

Systems integrators and tech managers can configure the AT-VSP-800 for either room scheduling or AV control within the Velocity System Gateway, eliminating the expense of purchasing and managing separate software platforms. Installers save additional time and money through the panel’s compact mounting footprint, which offers universal compatibility within walls or furniture via a one-gang US, UK or EU opening.